The Intersection of Autism and Addiction, with Dr. Brandon Park
Host: Brenda Zane, brenda@brendazane.com
Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Guest: Dr. Brandon Park, Founder & Executive Director, New Focus Academy
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About this episode:
After a long search for a trustworthy specialist, I finally cover a topic I’ve been wanting to dig into - neurodiversity and addiction. When I found neuropsychologist Dr. Brandon Park of New Focus Academy, I knew I had someone with the expertise I needed. In this episode, Dr. Park explains why kids with autism can find themselves especially susceptible to addictions – not just to alcohol and drugs, but also technology use and other behaviors. He also shares what parents need to know when considering treatment for a child who is neurodiverse - it’s a do-not-miss conversation.
Episode resources:
New Focus Academy Website: www.newfocusacademy.com
Instagram: @newfocusacademy
Social Emotional Fluency Model developed by Dr. Park
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00;00;01;29
Dr. Park
People with neurodiversity of all type are more likely to really struggle with addiction and not just chemical addiction, but technological addiction and other addictions with autism. Sometimes they'll seek drugs to connect with other kids or to put on a persona. You know, some some kids that get involved in the drug culture feel pretty inferior. And so suddenly to become the bad ass thug is this persona they can put on to make themselves feel more powerful, more more strong, Like they've got a sense of purpose and a direction.
00;00;47;29
Brenda
You're listening to HopeStream. The place for those parenting teens and young adults who are misusing drugs and alcohol in a treatment program or working their way toward recovery. It's your private space to learn and to gain encouragement and understanding for me. Your host, Brenda Zane, and fellow parent to a child who struggled. And I'm so glad you're here to learn more about all the resources available to you besides a podcast.
Please head over to Hope Stream Community Talk. Okay, so today you finally get to hear about a topic I know is really important and can be also really confusing, which is neurodiversity and autism in particular combined with substance use. I've been looking for a while for an expert who could address this intersection because in the research that I have done just some cursory research, it seems that there is a definite connection.
And through a series of very fortunate events, I was introduced to Dr. Brandon Parke, who is the founder and the executive director of New Focus Academy, which is an evidence based residential school for teens for struggling with high functioning autism or other neurodevelopmental issues. Let me just tell you a little bit about this unicorn that I found. Dr. Park received his bachelor's degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in psychology, and then continued on at UNLV for his master's and his doctoral degrees.
And while he was pursuing his Ph.D., his mind was drawn to the significance of the brain and cognitive process, which led him to study neuropsychology. Dr. Park has worked with a wide variety of clients suffering from traumatic brain damage, severe mental illness, fetal alcohol exposure, congenital and developmental disorders, anoxia and stroke. Through this process, he learned about the power of cognitive rehabilitation, a dynamic field of looking at how brain function can be improved.
00;03;03;12
Brenda
This conversation is so important and you're going to hear how substance use is actually just one addiction that parents need to be cognizant of. If you have a neurodiverse child, we also talk about myths and incomplete diagnoses. And Dr. Park also shares some of the indicators of autism in young people who have not yet been diagnosed. I'm so grateful for the time I got to spend having this discussion because I know you may be observing your teen or even a college aged kid and wondering what is really going on.
There are so many layers. So even if you don't have an autism diagnosis for your child, this is really, really good information to share. With that, let's just dive right into this. Enjoy a much needed and critical conversation about neurodiversity, the intersection of autism and substance use, and a lot more with Dr. Brandon Park of New Focus Academy.
Dr. Brandon Park I am so excited to have this conversation with you today. Thank you for joining me. I know you have a crazy busy schedule, so I appreciate you carving out an hour to just share some really vital information with my parent listeners. So thanks for being here.
00;04;29;07
Dr. Park
I'm glad to be here. I'm excited about what you do.
00;04;32;01
Brenda
So thank you. Well, it's it's it's not the most glamorous or sexy job in the world, but it is definitely rewarding. And I'm sure you might feel the same.
00;04;44;21
Dr. Park
Yeah, I guess it depends on glamorous. Definitely not the word, but like, Green, hope is always a good thing.
00;04;51;19
Brenda
Absolutely. And you you see a lot of that with the families that you work with. And, you know, I want there's so much to get into. We could probably speak for a few hours. But I think in the parents that I work with in that I see I just see a lot of patterns, as I know you do.
And I see a lot of patterns around neurodiversity. And I would love to just start out. Could you define for us just so that we have a baseline when we hear because there's a term that we hear more often, right? Neurodivergent or Neurodiverse, even autism, and then we hear Asperger's and it's like, no, Asperger's isn't any more so.
I think there's a lot of confusion just around the language around this. So maybe you could ground us in in how to understand what we're talking about.
00;05;39;23
Dr. Park
The word neurodiverse was first a term coming to the idea that neuro obviously referring to brain and diversity, and it was initially used for autism, but yet then other people like, well, isn't this also diverse? Isn't learning disorders. Neurodiversity is an ADHD narrative, virtually isn't bipolar, no diversity. And yes, they all are. And actually I like that we talk about this broader idea of neurodiversity and that that means that there's so much included in there.
Linguistically, Neurodivergent is a more succinct word for talking about a singular person, but it's also now the term that autism is kind of incorporated. So Neurodivergent really is referring to on the big picture of things, those that are on the autism spectrum as opposed to those who are just neurodiverse and various types. And linguistically, words always change. And so two years from now, we may have a different term.
00;06;49;05
Brenda
Right.
00;06;50;10
Dr. Park
Right now, in fact, the big movement in autism is they they they're not actually a huge fan of the term spectrum. At first they were, but now they're not. And they're really appalled by the name disorder. And to me, that makes sense because it really is gay disorder. No, I think most people say, no, it is not a disorder.
It is your phenotype of how you you're developed and what you're attracted to or what is important to you. Some of our greatest scientists and researchers are autistic. You know, some of the greatest inventions of our time. But we wouldn't be as progressive a society as we are without people that have this brain pattern in time. And so to call it disorder is is not really fitting.
And so we typically what they're asking for is that they say we have an eye, we're an autistic person or have an autistic personality saying, you know, this is part of who we are and how we see the world, which is a good thing. One of my favorite things to do when I'm working with someone with autism is to help them get the idea that their biggest problem is dealing with us.
If we were in the minority and they were in the majority, we would be angry, frustrated, depressed, anxious, distressed. We would be the outcast. The ones that didn't say it right and do it right. We weren't black and white enough. We weren't rigid enough. We weren't you know, we tried to use too much nuance. We're too worried about social, you know, social comforting and stuff like that, rather than being direct and blunt.
00;08;37;10
Dr. Park
You know, we're the weird ones. And so that would really affect who we are and how we feel about ourselves. So the problem is they're in the minority. They're the ones that don't do what the collective majority likes. And so it makes them really struggle. And when you start thinking about substance abuse, it's I know that's one of your keys.
People with neurodiversity of all type are more likely to suppress certain key ones that make it hard for them to adapt to the norm. Really struggle with addiction and not just chemical addiction, but technological addiction and other addictions. So when you have ADHD, you start failing in school and really struggling, then you feel like you're not good enough, affects your self-esteem and drugs can be a cool acceptance group or a great way to self-medicate.
Well, also with autism, sometimes they'll seek drugs to connect with other kids or to put on a persona, you know, some some kids that get involved in the drug culture feel pretty inferior. And so suddenly to become the bad ass, bad hill thug. Yes. Is is this persona they can put on to make themselves feel more powerful, more more strong, Like they've got a sense of purpose and a direction.
Some people, though, aren't good enough to do that, that that mask and that camouflage and trying to create a persona they will sometimes then is more where they're trying to get the social acceptance because they still don't quite fit in. It's about self-medication or what we see as we see tech addiction really high, because what happens is social media is a great way to interface and not have all the ramifications.
00;10;36;29
Dr. Park
You fail in one social group on social media, you jump out of that group and start into a new group, or you can create all kinds of lies about who you are and catfish people and create this whole perfect thing that your real control of where when you have autism. And it's hard to see all the social nuances of the world and you have to deal with it constantly.
It's hard to navigate that. But when you can carry it down to computer screen and no one really knows the true background of who you are, you can create a whole different idea of who you are. It's tricky and it is tricky.
00;11;17;01
Brenda
There's, I think, a misperception sometimes. You know, when we think of autism, I think there are some young people who, like with ADHD, it's maybe not a misdiagnosis, but it's a under diagnosis or a incomplete diagnosis maybe. So I'm thinking of parents who are listening, who have kids who are struggling, who maybe don't present outwardly as clearly as being autistic.
Like, sometimes you will be able to tell if you have a parent who is listening and they're like, huh, Well, maybe. I don't know. I never thought about this. You know, maybe there was an ADHD diagnosis or or some other diagnosis when they were younger, but they're seeing some things. What would be some things that they could look for that might start to clue them in to say, oh, maybe this is something that we should look more into, especially with an adolescent.
00;12;14;17
Dr. Park
There's a trick to this. There's certain kids that are much better at picking up and imitating than others, especially girls. Girls are vastly underdiagnosed with autism. They tend to be much better at creating a persona. The things that you would look for are definitely things like greater sensory sensitivity. Sometimes kids with autism because of how their brain is structured, it's more of a neuro structural variation, and it presents as ADHD like symptoms, but doesn't always respond to the medication.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. So in other words, they've got the ADHD presentation and it's not responding. You see more OCD type qualities sometimes, and it's different like some some kids don't. But but OCD qualities a difficulty with understanding nuances of social situations, frustration related to that. Sometimes you'll see that they will parallel play rather than kind of a reciprocal playing when you see them at a young age.
And that starts to play out differently as they get older. But if you look back at your child, were there sensory sensitivities? Were they slower to get up and walk and talk where they slower to potty trained? Were they more likely to play next to a kid rather than play with the kid? You know, like when they would look at you, when they're a small child, would they look more And I'd rather look at your eyes.
Look kind of more around the room for anything that was different and unique rather than looking at your eyes. One of the social developmental norms that we see is neurotypical or whatever typical is, but non neuro diverged brains. We learn at a very young age, and when a child start looking for signs on the face of emotions. Kids that have autism look for more differences in the environment rather than looking to figure out how to read the emotions.
00;14;18;16
Dr. Park
So how they look for things in the world is different than how others looking for things in the world where we're so socially connected. We're trying to read each other, you know, even as we're talking, I'm trying to watch what your eyes are doing and you're what my eyes are doing. Really, Where with autism, they don't. You also notice as they start getting older, some of their sensory sensory sensitivity, depending on how severe their autism is, will start to diminish a little bit.
They start to learn some adaptive ways to do things. And so what you'll see is you'll see some odd behavior when they're really young, then get a little bit better, although they'll have their moments and their meltdowns. That lasts longer than most kids do, but they just kind of you'll see the doctors say they're quirky, but it's okay.
But then what you'll see is they'll hit adolescence. And once adolescence hits, you're thinking about their school life or school. It becomes way more complex socially, functionally, everything else. So you're going to multiple different classes. So there's lots of transitions. Kids with autism have a tough time predicting their environments. When you're transitioning from one thing to another to another, it's overwhelming to them.
And so you start to see these kids just being emotionally just done by the end of the day. And like the idea of doing homework sounds terrific because they're just exhausted and then their hormones are kicking in and all the social nuances of life are kicking in, who likes who, who's cute, who's not, and and fear for the kids that are in the higher functioning range of autism.
00;16;00;29
Dr. Park
It's it's much like when my grandmother first developed Alzheimer's. Actually, my mom as well, sadly. But both of them, as they first entered Alzheimer's, they knew enough to know they were missing things but couldn't figure out what it was they were missing. And that's what it's like for a lot of these high functioning kids. They see social things happening.
They pick up on some of them and they know things are happening. They can't pick up on all of them. And they're really clumsy and they're awkward and their social emotional intelligence doesn't match their cognitive intelligence, which is so frustrating for them. They don't get why those things don't match. And so they feel just like my my mother and grandmother did.
They feel depressed, anxious, frustrated, sad. They start isolating and getting quiet. They don't know what to do with themselves. And you see a very similar thing to kids with a functioning autism in their early adolescence. They're trying to figure it out. They're trying to figure out how to navigate the world that they're not set up for.
00;17;06;26
Brenda
Yeah, well, and it makes perfect sense then why substances would be such a solve for that? Because it's like, oh, you know, it just sort of numbs all of that out. For a neurotypical teenager, life is so complex. So like you add in the social and then these are my kids high schools. They had to have a iPad because that's how they did all their homework.
So it's not like you can even take the technology away because they have to have it. So I'm just thinking of what a complex how many layers there are there to sort out from a school perspective, a social perspective. And then if parents are watching a child, whether they know that their they have autism or not, to see the substance part layered on top of that gets really confusing.
Is the behavior, the substances or is the behavior the autism, or is it just regular old teenage behavior? What are your thoughts around how parents should be thinking about that?
00;18;15;29
Dr. Park
So for me, substance abuse becomes its own beast. But it's important to try and figure out what started the beast, because they're probably another beast. It's one of those things where the beast could have been trauma. But once substance abuse started, you've got two beasts. Yeah, well, it could be the neurodiversity or it could be autism. But once the once they actually develop an addiction, then you've got to be.
And so you've got to look at it as, okay, we've got an issue with with substance abuse addiction or any other addiction out there. What initiated that? Because you you need to figure out what the underlying thing was that set them up for being susceptible to it. Because if you deal with the if you deal with the the addiction without dealing with the underlying cause, you you don't you'll run into the problem that it'll reemerge again or you'll find they'll find some new addiction.
You know, I've seen kids where they've they've got treatment for the substance addiction and then they get developed an eating disorder and then they develop a tech addiction and then they go shopping addiction. And because there was an underlying issue that was never dealt with and they said, like, I it's okay, maybe that's autism, maybe that's a trauma.
Maybe that's both. Maybe that's the trauma of dealing with autism. You know, there's there's lots of things that are underlying that. If you don't find out what that underlying cause is, then you you'll knock one beast out and you'll find that and it will keep popping up like that. The Whac-A-Mole is like whack a mole.
00;19;58;15
Brenda
Yes. And I and I have to imagine that for some kids who are autistic, just the experience of being in school, there would be a lot of bullying potentially because of a difference like any any little difference. Seems like, you know, kids get bullied for. But especially if you're having a hard time, like you said, with nuances. So maybe you're not responding properly or maybe you're really crazy smart and kids will bullied you for that because, oh, you're the smart kid or whatever.
So seems like a lot of complexity going into that.
00;20;34;10
Dr. Park
So the kids that have more pronounced symptoms, everyone sees it and everyone knows it's a problem. And those kids get addresses. It's it's kind of like, you know, two kids can be mentally challenged, but one has Down syndrome. Everyone knows what's going on and they help my kid. They protect. But you can have a kid that has the same level of cognitive challenges, but they look normal.
They don't get the same support. Right. And so when a kid has more significant, obvious autism, it sticks out like a sore thumb and they get the support. But when they're higher functioning and they're good at masking and camouflage, and then it's it's harder for them to get the support from adults and then they're just kind of in the grinder with all the kids.
And yes, they start experiencing bullying. They are experiencing things that just don't make sense to them. They will do things to be blunt, you know, they'll do things like exchanging sex for friendship and not realizing what that is. I had a kid who this great example of I had, they went to a therapist who I don't think really got the gist of neurodiversity and and autism itself and kept trying to talk to this kid about having a trauma from from from having sex, just exchanging sex for friendship.
And so the kid started pathologizing themselves and developing that trauma.
00;22;01;18
Brenda
Right.
00;22;02;14
Dr. Park
That's an unhealthy behavior. Let's talk about unhealthy behavior. Not pathologizing it over the kid also had gone to a concert where they got trapped. There was all kinds of drug smells going on, all kinds of loud music. They couldn't get out. And the therapist wouldn't acknowledge that that was a trauma for a kid with autism as massive sensory sensitivity was trapped for 4 hours and had no way of escaping and had got down on the ground and was rocking back and forth.
And the therapist wouldn't acknowledge that as a trauma was trying to make unhealthy behavior definitely unhealthy behavior, a trauma. And it was so confusing for this kid. It's like, But wait, I thought this was the trauma and that wasn't it trauma. And I said, you know, a trauma is what causes you deep pain and we want you definitely be safe.
But we also when you've had a deep pain, how do we help you deal with that, including now this the addiction stuff that has developed subsequently from the deep pain that you have. And that kid had a lot of pains from social rejection, from that concept, from a few other experiences, and they were self-medicating with drugs to help them.
And then they forge them into a therapist who's missed aligning them on what the real problem was.
00;23;32;12
Brenda
If you're here listening to Hope's dream, I'm guessing you might be glad to know there are other resources that you can take advantage of as you work on getting your family to a better place. We've now combined all the information you need into one simple space called Hope's Dream Community. It's where you can learn about our private online communities for moms and dads, our retreats are educational offerings and of course, the podcast host Dream Community is a nonprofit organization that exists solely to help you navigate this challenging season in life and to be connected, educated and taken care of so that you're better equipped to help your child make positive change in their lives.
You are not helpless when your child misuses substances, and we're here to give you the tools and information you need after the episode, take a look at Hope's dream community. Walk to find what we offer. Now back to the show. So that kind of brings me to something I wanted to ask about in finding resources. So as a parent, you know, if you know, if there has been a diagnosis in, you know, at least part of what you're dealing with, that's one thing.
But like you said, a lot of them can mask really well and maybe you don't know what you're dealing with, but you know, there's a substance use issue. What's the likelihood, if you go to maybe your typical kind of 30 day substance use treatment program that they're going to pick up on this additional like, oh, maybe there's something else going on here, because I'm just trying to think of when I was looking for resources for my son where I thought I was going to lose my mind, just trying to find some resources.
And I wasn't layering on the narrative varsity. What a challenge that must be.
00;25;28;07
Dr. Park
Yeah. And then fortunately there's that problem and you see it in any walk of life, whether we're talking about marketing or talking about lawyers, we talk about mental doctors, therapists, people kind of get focused in on one way of thinking. And they don't always they always think everything is a trauma. Everything is autism, everything. Is this part of the other where they're trying to be really open, like what are all the possibilities?
Which ones are truly there and which ones are maybe the most prominent? I would say the 30 day programs sometimes struggle with the fact that they are too focused on their more typical clients, and so the more neurodivergent clients is is not as easily picked up on that as easily as well understood, sometimes misdiagnosed with that trauma or had the trauma placed in the wrong place, as we just talked about, you know, finding a good neuropsychologist who understands and that's my background and training is I'm a neuropsychologist now, a time to testing anymore, but taking in all the different options and being good at looking at what's all these things are, and then helping a
parent understand, here's what the issues are, here's how we look through those issues. And like, it does seem like your child's been traumatized, but they also have you know, they're also on the autism spectrum. They're also maybe have, you know, if there's adoption, maybe they have some attachment issues and they also have these issues. And how do we kind of go through all these different issues?
Which ones are the most prominent? And also, one thing I think is really helpful is understanding as you look at the measurements and numbers, you can actually tell a story. And I wish we had more time because sometimes there's are, like I said, there's various forms of neurodiversity there, kids that have verbal dominance in in research. It's called non-verbal learning disorder.
00;27;49;14
Dr. Park
They're verbally dominant. So the way their brain is wired, they're much more linear, logical and verbally oriented, but then they miss some of the spatial perceptual seeing different perspectives. Sometimes you have a kid that's much more visually impaired perceptual and their verbal abilities aren't as good, so they miss certain linear, logical patterns and understanding these things and how that plays out.
Understand what a kid's struggling with, how they can experience the world, how they're going to experience social situations. Those are just a few examples as we start to look at how these kids experience life, you can get a really good neuropsychologist testing done by someone who really can not only do to get testing, but then help you interpret it.
It can give you a pathway to know how to help your child, not only with the addiction, but with the underlying causes that led to the addiction.
00;28;46;18
Brenda
Can a young person with autism fit into kind of a standard treatment program or kind of what would be the unique needs? Would it work to place them in maybe a traditional wilderness program or traditional residential treatment, especially if we're talking adolescents here? What are the things that parents kind of need to have like their radar up for?
Or is it just flat out? No, you need to have a program that is really geared toward neurodivergent.
00;29;17;15
Dr. Park
Certain kids are actually really good in a mixed milieu because they have enough functionality that putting them in a mixed milieu is helpful. So if they if that if the program has other kids that have autism neurodivergent but they also have kids, they're nine and they're good understanding it for sure. And kids that are pretty high functioning and pretty good at masking and hiding you, they can actually do well in those mixed milieus as long as the program is really aware there's other kids where the autism is more pronounced, it's more obvious then it needs just that single focused.
So my program in particular, we take kids that have more clear and obvious symptoms. So all of my kids pretty much have autism or some other neuro divergence that's pretty significant that, you know, so you kind of know what you're dealing with. But when I was assessing kids, I would I would I would really try to know the difference between those two kids is a kid that is almost on the cusp of fitting in, but not quite.
You put them in an all existing program and they just feel frustrated and they start it starts really affecting their sense of self-esteem. You put them into a mixed milieu where they really understand those nuances. That's great. So I think that's always a good question to ask. The people you're working with is that would you do well in the mixed milieu or really a single focused kind of milieu that's focused on autism?
00;30;50;23
Brenda
Yeah, well, it could also be good, I think, for for the kids who are not neurodiverse in that group, to have that interaction as well and to start to understand, Oh, okay, this is kind of what this looks like. Maybe they were the ones bullying a kid in their school, right? So it could be good. I could see how mixing it up would be really helpful like that.
00;31;12;07
Dr. Park
I have an all autistic program and we still deal with bullying. It's interesting that people create pecking orders when they're trying to deal with their own self-esteem issues and it's actually a really big focus of all treatment programs is how to to be to build more adaptive focus. And the people to deal with what's going on on the inside rather than externalizing it.
And that can come in the form of bullying or addictions or other things. When you start externalizing the pain that's going on inside.
00;31;45;06
Brenda
Do you see parents struggling with this diagnosis and what it might mean for their child, and especially with substance use involved, it seems like it could be a really tricky wicket It had.
00;31;59;03
Dr. Park
It's becoming better as it's as there's more autism awareness and people seeing successful people with autism. But for some people it's hard for them to accept. For others they accept it right away. But then I'll see parents beat up on themselves. Like, why didn't I know sooner? It looks like feelings. I'm a horrible parent. You know, obviously it's understandable why they feel that way, but it doesn't actually help anyone.
Help them to move forward, doesn't help them to then help their child because it's hard enough raising any child. But if they are on the autism spectrum and high functioning, that's you know, there's not really good training for parents on that. That's hard.
00;32;47;19
Brenda
Yeah, it is good to know that there is really specific help available for those, because the other thing that I've heard from parents is, oh, I can't send my child to treatment because they are on the spectrum or I can't send them because we don't know. And I understand that. But I think it's really helpful to know that there are people who have Ph.Ds in this like that can help you figure this out, because it's a really it's hard.
I guess it's hard anyway. But to know that you have a really complex child plus substance use is really difficult. I'm wondering if there is any, like myths or misperceptions that you just want to clear up. If you had, you know, 1500 people sitting in front of you, parents who are struggling with kids who may or may not be autistic, but are all, you know, struggling with substances and mental health, is there anything that you would want to clear up for them once and for all?
00;33;48;01
Dr. Park
I would want all parents to be kind to themselves, because if our kids learn from us and we want them to be kind to themselves, so we need to be kind to ourselves and forgiving of ourselves because otherwise, if they see us hating ourselves and frustrated with ourselves, that's what they learn. Another thing is I find with with with a lot of issues, neurodiversity, especially autism, also with traumas and things like that, there's been such a flood of emotions that they don't know how to manage.
One of the things that think is really helpful is to when you're working with your child, is to appreciate that we shouldn't do the things that our parents got us to do. Like when we were young, if there was a mistake, we sat down, scared each other in the eyes, and did an autopsy of the failure, which only makes guilt and shame go up and more guilt and shame goes up, the more learning goes down.
And if you're already struggling with emotions, the more you drive up those emotions, the more they're going to struggle. So when we can say, Oh, that didn't work out, how would we do it in the future? I was forward thinking this. How would we do something better if we have something similar in the future? What you'll find is you reduce the guilt and get more into a problem solving mode.
Also, don't sit down and stare at them. We didn't like when our parents did this to us. It's even worse if you have autism and you don't want to look people in the eye anyways. Go for a walk. You'll find you'll have drastically better conversations going for a walk or playing a game. It what it does is it allows them to stay in the moment, you know, be active a little bit, doing something innocuous, which helps to reduce sort of emotional struggles and reduce some of the emotional barrier power of what you're trying to talk about.
00;36;02;11
Dr. Park
What you'll notice is actually a much better job talking about these things going over issues that are that are they're struggling with going over failures that they've had. One of the biggest things I find with the kids I work with is they've gotten to a point where rather than thinking they make mistakes, they feel like they are a mistake.
00;36;24;06
Brenda
Breaks my heart.
00;36;25;25
Dr. Park
Yeah. And so if we can, if we can do things that help them to reduce their emotions and get into a problem solving mode and then help them to see the power themselves in solving problems and being successful, you'll find that they start to improve how they feel about themselves. And there's a lot more things I could say that's.
00;36;51;06
Brenda
You know, I'm sure. Yes, there's a lot well, that's why that's why you do what you do. I was wondering about when you were talking about, you know, like not sitting face to face and talking for kids who are really less verbal Is is writing a form of dealing with some of these things, I'm thinking like either texting or just writing notes to each other.
Is that effective or is it really better to try and have a conversation? Like if you're trying to work through, you know, struggles or learnings or things like that.
00;37;23;29
Dr. Park
I think texting can be a good way to open up a door. But I would definitely say that even though they have autism, if your child has autism, you know, being able to process it in the moment and make sure that we're understanding is there's so much miscommunication that can happen with texts. So texts can take that way to open a door.
Okay. But need you really do need to make a connection and to walk through it. And one thing I'd also say is when kids again come back, this idea of emotionally flooded it. When a kid is emotionally flooded, don't try to talk to them. You need to be careful. Sometimes even soothing them when we're highly stimulated, even soothing can be too much stimulation.
Sometimes the best thing to say is to let them know you're present and want to talk when they're ready to talk. So I came across the young man who had been shoved to the ground and had someone straddling over him yelling at him, And this is a kid with autism. I got the person off and away from him and I just grabbed the kid and we just went walking down the block again.
I'm not looking at him or walking and I say much. I just just like, Hey, I'm glad you're okay. I'm here. Let's just get away from us. We just walked in. They didn't say anything. We got the corner and we sat down and I just waited for a few seconds and, you know, just kind of seeing what I was doing and followed me.
00;38;51;27
Dr. Park
And he just sat down with me. And after a few seconds, maybe like 20 seconds, he asked me a question. And I knew that that meant he had called himself down. And then the door was open to start conversing. Prior to that, there had been a woman trying to sue this kid and trying to talk to him. And and he was already upregulated.
And even though she had a sweet, soothing voice, it was actually too much stimulation. And all it actually is doing is reminding you of why he was angry. And so the sweet voice actually was too much stimulation for giving them silence. But being present is actually a really powerful way to allow them to reregulate themselves and then open up the door for conversation.
00;39;41;07
Brenda
That's a huge insight, especially because I think as moms, sometimes our nature is to go in and try soothe and to talk and it's okay and it is a dead. And so that's, I think, a really good insight that that might not be the right approach.
00;39;55;13
Dr. Park
So I still do that myself sometimes it's hard.
00;40;00;26
Brenda
Well, before I let you go, I would love to know what do you love most about what you do?
00;40;06;16
Dr. Park
Kids love themselves and like themselves.
00;40;10;07
Brenda
Amazing. Well, thank you so much. I know that there's lots, lots more, but we've got links to you and resources, the show notes. So if you're listening and you want to learn more, this was obviously like not even the tip of the iceberg. I think this was like the tip of the tip of the iceberg. So learn more.
And we're so glad that you were here. Thank you so much.
00;40;32;08
Dr. Park
It's great talking with you and thank you for inviting me.
00;40;36;09
Brenda
Okay. That Is it for today? If you would like to get the show notes for this episode, you can go to Brenda Zane Gqom forward slash podcast. All of the episodes are listed there and you can also find curated playlists there, so that's very helpful. You might also want to download a free e-book I wrote. It's called Hindsight Light.
Three Things I Wish I Knew when My son was Misusing Drugs. It'll give you some insight as to why your son or daughter might be doing what they are. And importantly, it gives you tips on how to cope and how to be more healthy through this rough time. You can grab that free from Brenda's income. Slash hindsight. Thank you so much for listening.
I appreciate it. And I hope that these episodes are helping you stay strong and be very, very good to yourself. And I will meet you right back here next week.